Shock roots me in place until Becks rolls the stranger off of my dad. When he doesn’t get up, the knife at his side tells me why.
Terror rips through me and I cry out, falling to the ground beside him just as my mom rushes into the room.
“What’s happened?” she asks, a sharp sound tearing from her when she sees my dad on the floor.
She disappears as I hover, not knowing what to do. When she reappears, she has a dishtowel in her hand. Dropping to her knees next to me, she wraps the towel around the knife, keeping it in place as she tries to stop the bleeding.
“Call 911.”
I go to reach for my phone, realizing I must have lost it in the woods.
“My back pocket,” she says, and I grab her phone, punching in the numbers with shaking hands.
Becks appears just as the operator picks up. I don’t see the guy who crashed through the window anymore, so I think he must have dragged him out of the way.
When I stand to tell the operator what’s happened and give her our address for an ambulance, Becks takes my place next to my mom.
The operator tells me to stay on the line, but I catch Becks saying, “More are going to keep coming. I need to take her.”
With the dispatcher jabbering in my ear, it takes my muddled brain a minute to understand what he’s saying. He wants me to leave my parents.
That’s not happening.
“Just get here, fast,” I tell the operator, and then disconnect the call as I go to my dad’s other side.
He looks up at me. “I’m okay,” he says, but his brow is already dotted with sweat, and his face is paler than I’ve ever seen it before.
There’s a sticky notepad on the end table, and Becks grabs it.
My mom’s obsessed with them. There’s a pad in every room. She leaves notes for herself as well as for me and my dad all over the house.
Becks scribbles something and then places the note next to my mom.
“Call this number and let them know where you are. They’ll protect you with their lives.”
She stares at it for a second before glancing up at Becks. “Whose number is that?”
“Your daughter and her husband.”
My sister is married?
My mom’s eyes get impossibly larger.
“Talon’s a powerful ice dragon,” Becks says quickly. “They won’t tell the Order where you are, but if anyone can protect you right now, it’s them. Together, they’re practically unstoppable.”
A million questions about my sister run through my head, but I shove them down. With my dad bleeding out in the living room and a freaking demon after me, now’s not the time.
Becks gets to his feet, but I don’t take my eyes off my dad.
“I love you,” he says, and I shake my head because it sounds too much like Goodbye.
Ambulance sirens sound in the distance and it fills me with relief.
“Hang on, Dad,” I say, tears clouding my vision. “You’re going to be all right.”
Suddenly, Becks grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet, ripping me away from my dad. With my duffel slung over his shoulder, he drags me toward the back door.
“Wait, no!” I yell, and tear from his grasp to fall back down at my dad’s side.
